In At the Death sa-4

by Harry Turtledove

  And then he got into Boston. On other leaves, he'd seen the pounding his home town had taken. Now he had other things on his mind, and hardly noticed. He slung his duffel over his shoulder and pushed out of the train car. Lots of people-sailors, soldiers, civilians-were getting off here.

  "George!" Connie yelled, at the same time as the boys were squealing, "Daddy!"

  He hugged his wife and squeezed his kids and kissed everybody. "Jesus, it's good to be home!" he said. "You know that Kennedy guy pulled wires for me?"

  "I hoped he would," Connie said. "I wrote him about how you'd been in long enough and who your folks were and everything, and it worked!" She beamed.

  He kissed her again. "Except on a fishing boat, I'm never leaving this town again," he said. Connie cheered. The boys clapped. They tried to carry the duffel bag. Between them, they managed. That let him put one arm around them and the other arm around Connie. It was an awkward way to leave the platform, but nobody cared a bit.

  R ain drummed down out of a leaden sky. Chester Martin's breath smoked whenever he went outside. It was nasty and chilly and muddy. He only laughed. He'd lived here long enough to know this was nothing out of the ordinary. "January in Los Angeles," he said.

  Rita laughed, too. "The Chamber of Commerce tries not to tell people about this time of year."

  "Yeah, well, if I were them, I wouldn't admit it, either," Chester said. "They do better with photos of orange trees and pretty girls on the beach."

  "I've never seen a photo of an orange tree on the beach," Carl said. While Chester was off being a top kick, his son had acquired a quirky sense of humor. Chester sometimes wondered where the kid had got it. Knowing Carl, he'd probably won it in a poker game.

  "You might as well hang around the house today," Rita said. "There won't be any work."

  "Boy, you got that right," Chester agreed. Rain in L.A. left construction crews sitting on their hands. "In the Army, they just went ahead and built stuff, and the heck with the lousy weather."

  "Yeah, but you're not in the Army any more. Good thing, too, if anybody wants to know what I think." By the way Rita said it, he'd better want to know what she thought.

  "Hey, you get no arguments from me. It wasn't a whole lot of fun." Chester still didn't want to think about what he'd done in that little South Carolina town. Oh, he wasn't the only one. He could blame Lieutenant Lavochkin for most of it. He could-and he did. But he was there, too. He pulled the trigger lots more than once. That was one thing he never intended to talk about with anybody.

  Carl asked, "If it wasn't any fun, why did you do it?"

  "Good question," Rita said. "Maybe you can get a decent answer out of him. I never could." She gave Chester a dirty look. She still resented his putting the uniform back on. Chances were she always would.

  He shrugged. "If Jake Featherston beat us this time around, I was just wasting my time in the last war. I didn't want that to happen, so I tried to stop it."

  "Oh, yeah. You were going to whip Jake Featherston all by yourself. And then you wake up," Rita said.

  "Not all by myself. That colored kid did, though." Chester shook his head. "Boy, am I jealous of him. Me and all the other guys who put on the uniform. But everybody who fought set things up so he could do it." He looked at his son. "Is that a good enough answer for you?"

  "No," Rita said before Carl could open his mouth. "All it did was get you shot again. You're just lucky you didn't get your head blown off."

  "I'm fine." Chester had to speak carefully. Rita's first husband had bought a plot during the Great War. "Wound I picked up doesn't bother me at all, except in weather like this. Then it aches a little. That's it, though."

  "Luck. Nothing but luck," Rita said stubbornly, and Chester couldn't even tell her she was wrong.

  "How many people did you shoot, Dad?" Carl asked.

  That made Chester think of the massacre again. It also made him think of firing-squad duty. Neither of those was what his son had in mind, which didn't mean they hadn't happened. "Some," Chester answered after a perceptible pause. "I don't always like to remember that stuff."

  "I should hope not!" Rita made a face.

  "Why don't you?" Carl asked. "You joined the Army to kill people, right?"

  Rita made a different face this time, a see-what-you-got-into face. Chester sighed. "Yeah, that's why I joined," he said, as steadily as he could. "But it's not so simple. You look at a guy who got wounded, and you listen to him, and it doesn't matter which uniform he's wearing. He looks the same, and he sounds the same-like a guy who's been in a horrible traffic accident. You ever see one of those?"

  Carl nodded. "Yeah. It was pretty bad. Blood all over the place."

  "All right, then. You've got half an idea of what I'm talking about, anyway. Well, imagine you just ran over somebody. That's kind of the way you feel when you've been through a firefight."

  "But when you're in a wreck, the other guy isn't trying to hit you," Carl objected.

  "I know. Knowing he's trying to get you, too…I think that's why you can do it at all. It's a fair fight, like they say. That means you can do it-or most people can do it most of the time. It doesn't mean it's a game, or you think it's fun," Chester said. Unless you're Boris Lavochkin, he added, but only to himself. Maybe that was what made the lieutenant so alarming: killing didn't bother him the way it did most people.

  Carl was full of questions this morning: "What about guys who can't do it any more? Is that what they call combat fatigue?"

  "This time around, yeah. Last war, they called it shellshock. Same critter, different names." Chester hesitated. "Sometimes…a guy sees more horrible stuff than he can take, that's all. If you can, you get him out of the line, let him rest up awhile. He's usually all right after that. War's like anything else, I guess. It's easier for some people than it is for others. And some guys go through more nasty stuff than others, too. So it all depends."

  "You sound like you feel sorry for soldiers like that. I thought you'd be mad at them," his son said.

  "Not me." Chester shook his head. "I went through enough crap myself so I know how hard it is. A few guys would fake combat fatigue so they could try and get out of the line. I am mad at people who'd do something like that, because they make it harder for everybody else."

  "Did you run into anybody like that?" Rita asked.

  "Not in my outfit," Chester answered. "It happened, though. You'd hear about it too often for all of it to be made up. Over on the Confederate side, they say General Patton got in trouble for slapping around a guy with combat fatigue."

  "What do you think of that?" Rita and Carl said the same thing at the same time.

  "If the guy really was shellshocked, Patton should have left him alone. You can't help something like that," Chester said. All the same, he was sure Lieutenant Lavochkin would have done the same thing. Having no nerves himself, Lavochkin didn't see why anybody else should, either.

  Before Chester's wife and son could come up with any more interesting questions, the telephone rang. He stood closest to it, so he got it. "Hello?"

  "Hello, Mr. Martin. Harry T. Casson here."

  "What can I do for you, Mr. Casson?" Chester heard the wariness and the respect in his own voice. Rita's eyes widened. Harry T. Casson was the biggest building contractor in the Los Angeles area. Before the war, he'd wrangled again and again with the construction union Chester helped start. They didn't settle things till well after the fighting started. Now…Who could guess what was on Casson's plate now? If he wanted to try to break the union-well, he could try, but Chester didn't think he'd get away with it.

  He started off in a friendly enough way: "Glad you're back safe. I heard you were wounded-happy it wasn't too serious."

  "Yeah." The only wound that wasn't serious was the one that happened to the other guy. Chester asked, "Did you ever put the uniform on again yourself?"

  "A few weeks after you did," Casson answered. "I was bossing construction projects, mostly up in the Northwest. I'
m embarrassed to say I didn't come anywhere close to the sound of guns. Well, once, but that was just a nuisance raid. Nothing aimed my way."

  "You paid those dues last time around." Chester knew the building magnate had commanded a line company-and, briefly, a line regiment-in the Great War.

  "Generous of you to say so," Casson replied.

  "So what's up?" Chester asked. "Latest contract still has a year to run."

  "I know. All the more reason to start talking about the new one now," Casson said easily. "That way, we don't get crammed up against a deadline. Everything works better."

  He was smooth, all right-smooth enough to make Chester suspicious. "You're gonna try and screw me, and you won't respect me in the morning, either."

  Harry T. Casson laughed. "I don't know what you're talking about, Chester."

  "Now tell me another one," Chester answered. "C'mon, man. We both know what the game's about. Why make like we don't?"

  "All right. You want it straight? I'll give it to you straight. During the war, you got a better contract than you really deserved," Casson said. "Not a lot of labor available, and there was a war on. We didn't want strikes throwing a monkey wrench into things. But it's different now. Lots of guys coming out of the Army and going into the building trades-look at you, for instance. And it's not unpatriotic to care a little more about profit these days, either."

  "So how hard are you going to try to hit us?" Chester asked. When Harry T. Casson told him, he grunted as if he'd been hit for real. "We'll fight you if you do that," he promised. "We'll fight you every way we know how."

  "I think you'll lose," the building magnate said.

  "Don't bet on it, Mr. Casson. You know how big our strike fund is?" Chester said. Casson named a figure. Chester laughed harshly. "Make it three times that size."

  "You're lying," Casson said at once.

  "In a pig's…ear," Chester replied. "We've been socking it away since 1942. We figured you'd try to give us the shaft first chance you got. We'll fight, all right, and we'll make your scabs sorry they were born. We whipped Pinkertons before. With all the vets back, like you say, sure as the devil we can do it again. Piece of cake, the flyboys call it."

  "Siccing the Pinkertons on you was a mistake. I said so at the time, but my colleagues didn't want to listen," Harry T. Casson said slowly. "Do you swear you're telling the truth about your strike fund?"

  "Swear to God." Martin made his voice as solemn as he could.

  "Damnation," Casson muttered. "That could be difficult. Not just a hard strike, but bad publicity when we don't need it…Will you agree to extend the present contract unchanged for another two years, then? Come 1948, both sides can take a long look at where they are and where they want to go."

  "You can get your friends to go along with that?" Chester asked.

  "Yes, if you're sure the rank and file will ratify it."

  "They will," Chester said. "Some of them might want a raise, but they're doing all right. Staying where we're at's a good enough deal."

  "A good enough deal," Harry T. Casson echoed. "I'm not thrilled with it, but I think you're right. It will do. Good talking with you, Chester. So long." He hung up.

  So did Chester. He also started laughing like a maniac. "What was that all about?" Rita asked.

  "New contract. Two years. Same terms as the wartime one," Chester got out between guffaws.

  "But what's so funny?" Rita demanded.

  Chester didn't tell her. One more thing he never intended to tell anybody. The real strike fund was smaller than Harry T. Casson thought, not three times as big. He'd raised Casson with a busted flush, and he'd made the magnate fold. Rain? So what? If this wasn't a good day's work, for him and for everybody else in the union, he'd never done one. The sooner we sign the papers, the better, he thought. But they would. After the war, a contract was…a piece of cake.

  E lizabeth clucked at Cincinnatus. "Aren't you ready yet?"

  "I been ready for twenty minutes. So has my pa," he answered. "You're the one keeps checkin' her makeup an' makin' sure her hat's sittin' just the right way."

  "I'm doin' no such thing," his wife said, and Cincinnatus prayed God would forgive the lie. Elizabeth added, "Not every day you marry off your onliest daughter."

  "Well, that's a fact," Cincinnatus allowed. "That sure enough is a fact."

  Amanda was at the beauty parlor, or maybe at the church by now. Cincinnatus reached up and fiddled with his tie. He'd never worn a tuxedo before. The suit was rented, but the clothier assured him plenty of white men rented tuxes, too. Seneca Driver wore Cincinnatus' ordinary suit. It was a little big on him, but he didn't have one of his own; he'd got away from Covington with no more than the clothes on his back, and money'd been tight since.

  "You look mighty handsome," Elizabeth said.

  "Glad you think so. What I reckon I look like is one o' them fancy servants rich folks had down in the CSA," Cincinnatus said. "They're the only ones I ever seen with fancy duds like this here."

  His wife shook her head. "Their jackets always had brass buttons, to show they was servants." She snorted. "Like them bein' colored wouldn't tell you. But anyways, they did. Your buttons is jus' black, like they would be if you wore them clothes all the time on account of you wanted to."

  Cincinnatus couldn't imagine anybody wanting to. The tux fit well, yes. But it was uncomfortable. On a hot summer day, it would be stifling, with the high wing collar and the tight cravat. He didn't even want to think about that. "I ain't sorry Amanda didn't want to wait till June," he said.

  "Do Jesus, me neither!" his wife exclaimed. "She try an' do that, maybe she have herself a baby six, seven months after they do the ceremony. People laugh at you an' talk behind your back when somethin' like that happens."

  "They do," Cincinnatus agreed. There was something he hadn't worried about. Well, his wife had taken care of it for him. He sent her a sidelong look and lowered his voice so his father wouldn't hear: "Only fool luck we didn't have that happen our ownselves."

  "You stop it, you and your filthy talk," Elizabeth said, also quietly. He only laughed, which annoyed her more. It wasn't as if he wasn't telling the truth. Plenty of courting couples didn't wait till the preacher said the words over them before they started doing what they would have done afterwards.

  For that matter, Cincinnatus had no way of knowing whether Amanda had a bun in the oven right now. He almost pointed that out to his wife, too, but held his tongue at the last minute. Maybe Elizabeth was already worrying about that, too. If she wasn't, he didn't want to give her anything new to flabble about.

  Someone knocked on the door. "Ready or not, you're ready now," Cincinnatus told Elizabeth. "There's the Changs."

  When Elizabeth opened the door, she might have been ready to meet President-elect Dewey and his wife. "Come in!" she said warmly. "Oh, isn't that a pretty dress!"

  "Thank you," Mrs. Chang said. She didn't know a whole lot of English-less than her husband-but she understood enough to nod and smile and say the right thing here.

  Joey Chang had on an ordinary suit, not a tux-he wasn't father of the bride, only father of the bride's sister-in-law. "I bring beer to reception, right?" he said.

  "Right!" Cincinnatus said. Mr. Chang was also one of the best homebrew makers in Des Moines. Since Iowa remained legally dry, that was an important talent. The authorities didn't seem to be enforcing the law the way they had before the war, but you couldn't just go round to the corner package store and pick up a couple of cases of Blatz.

  "I do it, then," Chang said. "You have colored people at your wedding, right?"

  "Well, I think so," Cincinnatus said dryly.

  "You have Chinese people, too." Chang nodded and pointed to himself and his wife. Their and Cincinnatus' grandchildren could have gone into either category. Chang went on, "You have white people, too?"

  "Yeah, we will," Cincinnatus replied. "Some of the guys from the butcher shop where Calvin works. Little bit of everything."

 
"Maybe not so bad," Joey Chang said. Considering how hard he and his wife had resisted Grace's marriage to Achilles, that was a lot from him. He insisted they would have liked it just as little had Grace married a white guy. Cincinnatus…almost believed him. Grandchildren had softened the Changs, as grandchildren have a way of doing.

  "We should go," Elizabeth said. "Don't want to be late." The church was a block and a half away, so there was very little risk of that. But Elizabeth would flabble. It was a wedding, after all.

  "Long as Amanda and Calvin are there-and the minister-don't hardly matter if we show up or not," Cincinnatus said. He made his wife sputter and fume, which was what he'd had in mind. Joey Chang tipped him a wink. Cincinnatus grinned back.

  The Changs made much of Seneca Driver as they walked to church. They took old people seriously. "Mighty nice great-grandchillun," Seneca said. "Mighty nice. I don't care none if they's half Chinese, neither. I wouldn't care if they was red, white, an' blue. Mighty nice."

  Cincinnatus wished he could move along with his back straight and without a stick in his right hand. His leg still hurt. So did his shoulder. The steel plate in his skull made mine detectors go off-an amused Army engineer had proved that one day.

  Beat up or not, though, he was still alive and kicking-as long as he didn't have to kick too hard. With a little luck, he'd see more grandchildren before long. Compared to most of the surviving Negroes in the conquered Confederacy, he had the world by the tail.

  Calvin's father and mother were already at the church. They were pleasant people, a few years younger than Cincinnatus. Abraham Washington ran a secondhand-clothes store. It wasn't a fancy way to make a living, but he'd done all right. Calvin had a brother, Luther, a year younger than he was. Luther wore a green-gray uniform and had a PFC's chevron on his sleeve. He looked tough and strong-and proud of himself, too.

  "I didn't see any combat, sir," he said to Cincinnatus. "Heard stories about what you truck drivers went through, though. What was it like?"

  "Son, you didn't miss a thing," Cincinnatus answered. "That's the honest to God truth. Getting shot at when they miss is bad. If they hit you, it's worse."